It was a three hour walk to my Jeep Commander, and it was an hour drive back to the station. The drive wasn’t what worried me. It was getting the hell out of Dodge that was my main concern. I didn’t know how close the rest of the tribe was. I didn’t want to find out. I needed to go, and go very, very quickly. The group of four had between them a bag of some sorts. I had grabbed it before scrambling down the mountain at pell-mell speed. I wondered what was in the bag. Coming to a small ledge of rock, I stopped and opened it up. What in the world could they have been lugging along?

It was a caribou skin bag and it contained some odds and ends. Bones mostly. Two skulls most importantly. Smaller and slimmer than humans but not animals at all. This must be some of their tribe. Incredible. No one had ever seen anything like this before. I would be abso-fuckin-lutely famous. I took them and stuffed them into my backpack. It was then that I heard the screams.

Normally when I hear them, I’m up alone in my station, and I can go investigate in the morning. But being this close, it sent chills up my spine. Fuck, that was close. I needed to move, move, move. I had my pack back on and was turning to leave when a glint caught my eye. Inside the pack, almost at the bottom was something shiny. I reached in. A flint knife of intricate design lay in my hand. Leather and wood over a full tang of flint and a very sharp little number of a blade, polished to a shine. It was gorgeous and it went in my left cargo pocket.

Another scream. I needed to beat feet. Without movement, they would catch me. Like an idiot, I hopped down from the rock and scrambled… And lost my footing. I’m a dumbass. I fell, tumbled, and fell some more, sliding along the scree. The ledge after the outcropping was sharper than I had figured, which may have been a vital mistake. Like. Literally, my vitality might drop to zero. Oh, and I was still falling, scrambling, and, yes, another two or three tumbles. Thanks to the tree that stopped me, but no thanks to the rock that rushed up and knocked me out.

The sun was too low when I came to and I was concussed. I knew I was concussed because the second time I vomited, I was super dizzy. Ugh. This is no good. My left leg was screaming at me as well. Great. Now I’ve only got one leg and I still have to hoof it out of here before crazy mountain people eat my face. Well, they probably wouldn’t eat my face first. They might save that for later and add it to one of their skull collections. Who the fuck knew? I didn’t, and I didn’t want to find out either. I tried standing on my leg….

Fuckin A.

Sitting down was so much nicer, but nothing that I had time for. Sitting, I shimmied my pants down and my thermals to check out my… Ugly yellow left knee. Oh man, I must have hyper-extended it or twisted it or something… Fuck. I must have been out for longer than thirty minutes for it to already look this bad.

I took off my neck-wrap and double wrapped it around the knee, cinching it tight. Holding back the yelps and whimpers, I wiped the tears from my eyes and pulled my pants back up. It didn’t make it any more comfortable, but the tightness would do me some good. I knew this was going to suck hardcore, but I had time to heal after I survived. Right now, making sure my hunters were not captors was the most pressing item on my mind.

I took some deer trails and one or two man-made trails. I was a little lost but had a general idea of where I was. My head hurt like a mo-fo. I needed to go a little to my South and I should be back on track. The sound of rushing water threw me off, but I kept running anyway. When I came upon the little lake, I knew that I was more lost than I had thought. My back was drenched with sweat. I had abandoned my toque long ago, it had just been too warm to wear it. Trail running was a sport all of its own, and I, the one legged man, was overdressed for it.

I got out my GPS and powered it up. Parke Creek should be right to my west. I had never even seen this landscape before. Where in the world was I? North of Reuter Peak? Holy shit. Had I been running the wrong way? How concussed was I? The sun would set soon and I was nowhere near where I thought I was. I hadn’t heard their screams for a while now, but that didn’t mean anything. When they hunted, they were well-coordinated and often ran in silence, as long as they could see each other.

In the glen where I was, the sun was already behind the ridge, and here in the valley it was already getting dark. As much as it might be the death of me, I had to make camp. You can’t run in the mountains at night, no matter who you are. I would just have to stay awake.